History Film / MadMax2TheRoadWarrior

* DodgeByBraking: Max does this at the beginning of the film when one of the {{Mook}}s chasing him pulls a crossbow on him. The bolt winds up in Wez's arm instead.
* DogFoodDiet: Max lives off cans of Dinky-Di dog food. You can even see crates of it stacked in the back of his car.

* DressedLikeADominatrix: A rare GenderInvertedExample with the Lord Homungus. While TheApunkalypse is in full swing, the BigBad nevertheless prefers to dress as a male dominator in the searing Australian heat, with no indication of it being an ouright sexual kink.
* DwindlingParty: The tanker defenders go down one by one as the chase continues: Zetta gets his leg caught with a grappling hook and his platform dragged off the tanker, the Warrior Woman gets shot by crossbow fire, then dragged under the tanker, taking the Mechanic with her when he tries to save her, and Papagallo gets killed by Humungus when he tries to get the Feral Kid off the tanker. Even the Gyrocaptain, while not killed, is effectively taken out of the fight when his autogyro gets shot down. By the end, it's only Max and the Feral Kid left on the rig by the time Max crashes it.
* DyingMomentOfAwesome: Happens as the oil rig defenders fight to the last [[spoiler:even though the rig is a decoy filled with sand. They [[HeroicSacrifice still ensure the rest]] of their community escape to safety.]]
* EatTheDog: The Gyro Captain raises snakes as a food source as well as guards for his vehicle.
* EpicFail: A pursuing Marauder tries to pop one on the Fuel Rig's Tires with a wrist-mounted blade. He gets sucked into the wheels for his trouble.

* BaitAndSwitchGunshot: A Marauder sees Max has crawled from the wreckage of his Interceptor and is too weak to defend himself. He raises his crossbow to shoot him, only for his cattle dog to come out and snarl, so he shoots that instead. The delay while he reloads his crossbow is enough for the booby trap to go off and kill him in the explosion.
* BatmanGambit: After the Gyro Captain works out that Max has a hidden weapon next to the fuel tank booby trap, Max walks to the car door without being told. Thinking he's going for another weapon, the Gyro Captain shoos him away from the door and opens it himself, whereupon the dog lunges out at him.
* BarbarianLonghair: Many of the bad guys have grungy [[TheQuincyPunk hair-metal mullets]].

* BigBadassRig: The Mack R-600 Coolpower tanker truck used for the final SternChase, modified for defense with spiked fighting positions and a steel plate with cowcatcher blade protecting the engine.

* BrickJoke: [[spoiler:The Gyro Captain only discovers Max's shotgun is empty when he removes a shotgun shell from a Marauder's corpse. The Gyro Captain points out the shell could be a dud but isn't willing to try his luck. Turns out the shell ''is'' a dud, which Max discovers when he tries to shoot Humungous.]]

** The bus used as a gate for the compound [[spoiler:is used to haul away the fuel in 44-gallon drums stashed on the seats.]]
** The booby trap on Max's fuel tank for a RuleOfThrees. The first time Max uses it to stop the Gyro Captain from killing him and stealing his gas, the second time the Mechanic disarms it, the third time Toadie triggers it.

* CrazyPrepared: Max keeps his car booby trapped to explode should anybody attempt to siphon fuel from the tanks. Furthermore, he keeps a knife right next to the bomb's arming switch so he can use it against anyone who does attempt to persuade him to disarm it. The Gyro Captain figures this out pretty quickly. (He wasn't counting on Max's dog, though.)

* DeadGuyOnDisplay: After chasing down the scouts, the Marauders return with their bodies tied to the vehicle hoods. Two survivors are tied to the front of Humungus's vehicle, and are left there even after he later has them tortured to death--their bodies get smashed during the final chase.
* DecapitatedArmy: Once Max has dispatched both [[TheDragon Wez]] and [[BigBad The Lord Humungus]] by [[CarFu running them both over with a truck]], the half a dozen or so remaining members of their gang look dejectedly at the crashed truck and drive off into the sunset, [[spoiler: as the tank turned out to be filled with sand and there is no gas for them to loot]].
* DecoyConvoy: [[spoiler:At the climax, part of the Northern Tribe goes with Max, driving a fortified tanker truck away from the refinery, which is set to explode. This succeeds in drawing Lord Humungus and his gang away from the rest of the tribe, who are carrying dozens of barrels of fuel in their vehicles for their journey to Queensland; the truck that Max is driving is full of sand, something even he doesn't know about.]]

* AllThereInTheScript: The screenplay names the Humungous' gang as the Marauders.
* AndStarring: The cast roll here ends with "and Emil Minty as the Feral Kid".
* AndThenWhat: Lord Humungus promises to let everyone go free if they just hand over the pumping station to the Marauders. While a few of the defenders are actually in favor of taking the offer, Papagallo points out that even if the Marauders ''do'' let them go (already a huge stretch), what happens next? Do the defenders just roam the wasteland like scavengers until they're no different from the Marauders?

* ApocalypticLogistics: Gangs driving gas-guzzling vehicles is {{handwave}}d in the OpeningNarration in that "only those mobile enough to [[ScavengerWorld scavenge]]" can survive. This explains their desperation to seize the tanker truck in particular.
* ArchaicWeaponForAnAdvancedAge: Both sides use bows and crossbows, as well as arrows fired by compressed air. The Warrior Woman uses a compound bow and is shown manning a modern version of a ballista on the refinery walls.
* ArmCannon: Wez and several other characters are shown with wrist-mounted crossbows, presumably because it leaves their hands free to drive a vehicle.
* AssKicksYou: When raiders enter the refinery, the Mechanic's assistant swings him in his suspension rig to knock one down- hitting him rear first.

** The Marauders apparently give up their siege and leave during the night, but when the settlers send out scouts the next day to find something to haul their tanker, they're quickly swarmed by the Marauders who have been waiting nearby the whole time.

** The truck is modified with a steel plate protecting the engine to prevent Humongous shooting it again, fighting parapets protected by SpikesOfDoom forged from metal fence pickets, and perforated steel plate shielding the tires.

* ShoutOut: Humongous refers to his [[Theatre/JuliusCaesar "dogs of war"]] and says they are in the [[AsTheGoodBookSays "valley of death"]]

** After Wez defies him Humongous has the by-now slavering and AxCrazy Wez chained to the front of his vehicle like a rabid dog, releasing him for the final battle.

The movie follows Max into the [[AfterTheEnd anarchic wasteland that used to be Australia]], where a few years later he is now WalkingTheEarth with his PostApocalypticDog in his CoolCar. He runs into a small ragtag group of survivors [[BleakBorderBase barricaded in an isolated oil refinery]], who are surrounded and terrorised by a vicious gang of bandits led by the mysterious masked Lord Humungus. After at first resisting their pleas for him to help them, Max ends up assisting them in their plan for escape to the north, exorcising some of his own personal demons.

* DeadGuyOnDisplay: After chasing down the scouts, the Marauders return with their bodies tied to the vehicle hoods. Two survivors are tied to the front of Humongous's vehicle, and are left there even after he later has them tortured to death--their bodies get smashed during the final chase.

* FaceHeelTurn: Implied with some of Humongous followers who wear police uniforms and drive police vehicles.

* RasputinianDeath: Wez takes impressive amounts of damage before finally collapsing.

* ApocalypticLogistics: Gangs driving gas-guzzling vehicles is {{handwave}}d in the OpeningNarration in that "only those mobile enough to pillage could survive." This explains their desperation to seize the tanker truck in particular.

* BarbarianLonghair: Many of the bad guys have grungy hair-metal mullets.

* KickTheDog: One of the Marauders [[spoiler:shoots Max's dog after the Interceptor crashes, rather than hunt for Max himself; then takes his time reloading--long enough to get blown up by the booby-trapped fuel tanks.]]

** [[spoiler:The big rig tanker Max drives out of the compound turns out to be full of sand. The fuel is actually being hauled in 44 gallon drums in the bus, which escapes along with the rest of the civilians while the Marauders are busy chasing after Max.]]

** Pappagallo inspecting the egg timer.
** The bus used as a gate for the compound.

* {{Foreshadowing}}: As the tanker becomes damaged in the climactic chase, sharp-eyed viewers might wonder why [[spoiler:sand]] is pouring from the broken hose on the side.
** Sharp-eyed viewers might also spot [[spoiler:the car Pappagallo drives during the final chase sitting abandoned next to Max in the opening shot, a hint that the driver didn't survive the film]].

-->'''Pappagallo:''' Oh, so that's it, you lost your family? That makes you something special, does it? Do you think you're the only one that's suffered? We've all been through it in here. But we haven't given up. We're still human beings, with dignity. But you? You're out there with the garbage. You're '''''nothing'''''.

** In the opening car chase, Max has Wez on his moterbike coming up on one side and a Marauder car on the other, so does a DodgeByBraking. The Marauder's arrow ends up going into Wez's arm.

** After the opening chase scene, Max rushes to a vehicle and puts out containers to gather up the leaking fuel. He then goes through the pockets of the dead truck driver, finding the music box that he later gives to the Feral Kid.

* RobbingTheDead: Max and the Gyro Captain return to the autogiro to find that the snake has killed a Marauder. Max goes through his pockets and finds a couple of shotgun shells. One breaks apart in his hands, but the other seems intact enough to load into his (now revealed to be empty) shotgun.

** The Feral Kid uses a razor-edged metal boomerang, using a padded glove to catch it on return.

** Max turns out to have been [[WeaponForIntimidation bluffing with an empty shotgun]] when he finds ammo again [[spoiler: which turns out to be a dud]]. While Pappagallo gives him a bag of shells for the final break out, he spills them during the action and has to send the Feral Kid crawling out onto the hood of the truck to pick up the last shell.

* BottomlessMagazines: Averted. Ammunition is shown to be extremely rare. Max turns out to have been [[WeaponForIntimidation bluffing with an empty shotgun]] when he finds ammo again [[spoiler: which turns out to be a dud]]. When he has functional ammo again during the final chase sequence, it takes him time to reload the few rounds he does have. The Lord Humungus has exactly five rounds for his Magnum, only loading it sparingly; he fires one shot at the truck when Max brings it back to the refinery and uses his last four at the start of the final chase. After that, he switches to triple bladed knives. Even before the collapse of society in the first film, characters never fire more than two rounds in any one go.

** The buses.
** The booby trap on two counts: Max's car and the refinery.

* PragmaticHero: Max as portrayed in this film was one of the forefathers to the NinetiesAntiHero. In one of the most memorable scenes, he calmly observes as the marauders assault two people who left the refinery. He doesn't do anything when they apparently kill the man and then rape and kill the woman. When the marauders get bored and leave the site, he stalks on the sole mook left behind, ambushing him before he can react and then starts to [[RobbingTheDead frisk everyone present]], with plans to also siphon some of the gas left behind. When Max realised that the HumanPincushion is still alive, he promises to bring him back to the refinery as a bargaining chip.